The Dark Knight

He stared at her for a moment, then took up Baxtalo’s reins. “The day grows older,” he muttered as he started toward the main gate.

“And more beautiful, methinks,” she replied, following him.

He didn’t look back at her but plodded through the archway. Tonia’s heart soared as she left the walls of her prison behind her. Beyond the gate, a broad, rock-strewn meadow sloped down to the stream that they had seen from the wall walk. Though the remains of last summer’s grass were brown and brittle underfoot, Tonia thought it the most splendid piece of earth she had ever seen. After watering his horse, the headsman turned the animal loose to forage. Then he looked at her.

He swept his arm in a graceful arc, like the lord of the forest that grew on the far side of the stream. “Well, my lady…er…Tonia, where pleases you?”

A hundred miles north of here at the very least. She skipped down the gentle hillside until she stood before him. Turning, she looked back up at the ruined fortress. Even in the bright sunlight, it exuded a dark, forbidding air. She certainly did not want to be buried within its looming shadow. Closer to the stream, she saw a hillock that overlooked the deep valley below them. She wondered if the dead were able to admire the beauty of their final surroundings.

“There.” She pointed to the sunlit spot.

He nodded. Without a word, he walked over to the mound, braced his legs apart for balance on the slope and struck the earth with his shovel. He muttered something under his breath. Tonia joined him.

“Still yet frozen.” He pushed the shovel down with his foot. A few clods of dark earth broke free.

Tonia concealed her glee. She sent a quick prayer of thanksgiving to Saint Michael. The executioner’s spade loosened another small clod or two. At this snail’s pace, it would take him a week to dig a grave that would be deep enough to hold her—and if the weather again turned cold, that time could stretch out even longer.

Masking her joy at this unexpected turn of events, Tonia pretended to be crestfallen. “’Tis not very promising, is it?” She prodded one of the dirt clods with the squared toe of her shoe.

The large man merely grunted as he attempted to wrest another shovelful of earth from the hillside. Gathering her cape around her, Tonia perched on a low stone that protruded from the ground. In silence, she watched him labor.

After a quarter of an hour, he had managed to scrape off the top layer of sod roughly in the contour of a grave. Though the shape did little to comfort Tonia, the frozen earth below encouraged her hope for a long reprieve. Pausing, the headsman mopped his perspiring lower face with the sleeve of his padded woolen jerkin.

Tonia took a breath. “Methinks ’twould be more comfortable for you if you removed your mask,” she suggested.

He shook his head, wiped his palms on the thighs of his brown leather breeches and then returned to his task.

Tonia pushed her windblown hair out of her face. “I give you my word of honor that I will not haunt you—afterward.”

Avoiding her gaze, he again shook his head.

Tonia rubbed her shoulders. Even though the sun shone, the wind kept the air chill. She rose and sauntered over to inspect his progress. Happily he was less than a foot down at one end.

She cocked her head. “’Twill take some time, methinks, for I wish to be buried deeply in the earth.”

He jammed the shovel’s head into the dirt until it stood upright, quivering on its own. He glared at her. “I will say when ’tis deep enough.”

Tonia refused to back away. Instead she assumed an injured expression. “Agreed, Monsieur de Mort, but I tell you truly, I had a nightmare of the wolves and wild boars feasting on my bones.” She did not need to feign her revulsion at this thought.

He looked down at the shallow hole. “I give you my word. You will rest in peace, my lady.”

She inclined her head in a small gesture of thanks. “The day is yet young and the sun still warms his rays. Come, let us walk in yon forest and allow the earth to…ah…soften a bit.” She held out her hand to him.

He bent his head and studied his work. “I have promises to keep,” he muttered.

Tonia swallowed, knowing exactly what he meant. “Aye, ’tis true, but you have also given me a promise—to plant my body deeply in this earth. Yet the ground is not ready for such a great hole. Let us walk awhile and enjoy the day while the sun does its task.”

She held her breath. A walk would give her more time to win the man’s trust. If she intended to escape on his horse, he had to permit her more freedom of movement.

The executioner wiped the dirt from his hands, then nodded. He looked across the rickety bridge that spanned the stream in front of the fortress. “What do we do on this walk?” he asked in an odd, husky tone.

A spiral of fear shot through Tonia. She hoped that he didn’t intend to ravish her within the hidden recesses of the trees. After all, he had told her he wouldn’t last night. But that was last night. She lifted her chin. “My grave will be a lonely one. I long to find some pieces of wood to fashion a cross to place at my head. ’Tis a simple thing.”

His lips twitched. “Everything is a simple request with you, and yet, you have complicated my life. Very well, come, but mind the bridge. Some of the wood is rotten.”

Tonia lifted her skirts and tripped down the hillside toward the stream. “You are afraid that I will drown, and so cheat you out of the King’s shilling? Methinks not, good executioner, for the water does not look very deep.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “’Tis cold as iron, my… ’Twould chill you.”

She laughed lightly to herself at the absurdity of the situation. Then she asked, “What about your horse? Will he follow us?” Crossing her fingers under her cape for good luck, she prayed that the animal would.

The tall man shook his head. “Baxtalo will stay in the field where he has the most hope of finding some good fodder to eat. He knows not to wander away.”

Tonia lifted one eyebrow. “Truly? He must be well trained.”

The headsman chuckled. “Aye, by myself,” he said with a note of pride.

The air grew cooler when they stepped among the trees. Dry leaves from the previous autumn carpeted the ground, while twigs and small branches snapped underfoot with sharp cracks that echoed off the surrounding hillsides. Tonia’s escort took the opportunity to gather some windfall kindling. Every so often he held out a stick to her with a silent question in his eyes. Each time, she shook her head. She was in no hurry to find the materials for her cross.

Her foot slipped on a damp, moss-covered rock. The headsman caught her hand before she fell. The shock of that physical encounter ran through her like wildfire. His skin was warm and, though hard calluses had roughed the pads of his fingers and palms, his touch was oddly soft—almost caressing. Startled, she looked up at him. His steady gaze bore into her as he tightened his hold on her. A tremor shook her and she was glad of his support. A strange aching took hold of her limbs.

I must be coming down with a fever or am faint from lack of food.

“Methinks breaking your leg is not in the warrant, Tonia,” he murmured. A sudden twinkle lit his eyes before he looked away. He squeezed her hand briefly before he released it. Tonia’s breath caught in her throat. Her name on his lips gave her an unexpected rush of warm pleasure. She coughed to cover her momentary confusion.

“I agree,” she replied. He started to turn back toward the meadow. “Sir!” she called to stop him. She didn’t want him to return to his gruesome chore. When he looked over his shoulder, she continued in a more controlled voice. “Sir, since we will be together a little longer, will you not please tell me your name? Surely you must be weary of hearing yourself called Master Death.”

Sandor heartily agreed. He enjoyed saying Tonia’s name. It had a pleasing roll on his tongue. But the inherent caution that marked all the Roms’ interaction with outsiders held him back from sharing his identity with her, though he had a strong desire to hear her say his name. He pulled his gaze away from her pleading eyes. He found it harder and harder to resist the lady when he looked into those bewitching blue orbs.

“I could give you one name today, another tomorrow and a third the day after that,” he replied.

Tonia drew closer to his side. Her cape brushed the back of his hand, sending a shiver of awareness rippling through him. The temptation to slip his arm around her waist and pull her against him grew harder to resist. She is a dead woman who merely breathes for a time. She is nothing to me but a cold corpse. Even as he thought it, he did not believe a word of it.

She touched his arm. “But none of those fine names would be your own true one, would it?”

His body burned. “The Rom consider a person’s name to be the most intimate thing we possess. Knowing your name gives someone power over you.”

She smiled up at him. He could barely breathe. “You know my name. Does that give you power over me?”

How I wish it were true! He cleared his throat. “The Rom never reveal their private lives to gadje. ’Tis our way to protect ourselves.”

She furrowed her brow. “What is a gadje?”

A smile trembled on his lips. “You, your family, the king who desires your death, his ministers and churchmen, everyone in England who is not a Rom.”

While Tonia considered this piece of information, he admired the beauty of her face. She reminded him of the saints that were painted on the stained glass windows of the Christian churches he had visited in France.

She laughed, a sound like dainty silver bells on the wristlets of dancers. “You say the word gadje as if it were coated in mud.”